


My Sign is Vital, my Hands are Cold

by thelairoevie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Crying, Getting Together, Insomnia, M/M, Morning Cuddles, No beta we die like Elias, Pining, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Slow Dancing, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, in the sense they define their relationship, the inherent love language of tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelairoevie/pseuds/thelairoevie
Summary: Things are good, for once, and it dosen't feel real.Jon learns to have good days again.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 33
Kudos: 134





	1. Close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinnamoniic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamoniic/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon is waiting to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the hurt-y bit of a slowish burn for hurt/comfort! It gets better I promise, but be warned that Jon is cannon-typically bad at feelings.

Being at the safehouse was like a dream. 

Even that first night, as he walked through the solid wooden door that opened separately like a barn door at the bottom, wrought iron swirls in a little latched window at the top, the whole exterior of the cottage looked more like a fairytale than it had really any right to. It was beautiful, more than he expected, and certainly more than he deserved. 

This safe house, with its cheap country charm and four extra sturdy locks, felt more like Daisy than any individual moment Jon had spent with her. The old-fashioned stereo on the faded table would be turned to radio four, he knew without Knowing. The sheets on the only full-sized bed would be the same flannel and jersey cotton as her clothes. The cheap curtains on the windows had a flower print, something she would have bought as a little joke, just to herself. It looked domestic, to her, and she liked that. Liked when things looked and sounded soft, because, beneath them, she was strong.

The train of thought brought him back to thinking of Martin. Martin, who was the one who actually deserved this sort of thing, somewhere safe, and cozy, that feels like home. Martin, who he loves beyond reason, and who  _ loved  _ Jon, once, past tense. Martin, who had been so strong through so much, for the sake of the rest of them. Martin, who would have been endeared by this idyllic space with its wildflowers and whitewashed walls, if he had anything in him left to be endeared. Instead, he faded away at the edges, in the lingering grasp of the Lonely, feeling more than anything else like a dream. Jon squeezed his hand tighter, trying to force it out, to solidify what little connection he could to keep Martin with him. It wasn’t until they were parting to sleep that Jon finally let go.

Jon let Martin take the bed, that first night, and himself found no sleep. Martin would never have to know that he sat vigil pressed against that charming country door, ready to be one more thing between the man that he loved and the demons that were bound to catch up with them. For the first time in months, he had a way to keep Martin safe. 

Only, somehow, those demons never showed. Jon spent the whole night watching, listening, and then the shift of the moonbeams through the window gave way to a sickly hint of the morning sun. It was nearly 10 in the morning when Jon moved away from the door to fix a breakfast of stale porridge and microwaved tea that was likely years out of date. Martin walked into the kitchen at exactly 10:06, his washed-out hair plastered to the side of his face and the blur of sleep still heavy over his eyes, and Jon found himself falling in love all over again. The now soft and golden sun only managed to highlight every freckle on Martin’s un-creased face. More than anything in the world Jon wanted to commit that moment to memory. Martin unguarded, soft, and safe.

The rest of the day flowed through his fingers like water. They took the horrible little van Basirra sent them in down to the nearest village, a half-hour away. Jon stocked up on everything he could find in the little co-op market, and Martin shyly offered up a platinum-level credit card, featuring Peter Lukas’s name. Jon reached for his hand, and Martin instead took the groceries. They returned to the cottage and entered a quiet that was equal parts tension and peace. Jon wanted Martin to reach out to him, to melt the tension in his shoulders and kiss the cold from under his skin. Instead, they poked halfheartedly at the fire, thumbed through Daisy’s period romance books, and pretended that there wasn’t a reason they had taken opposite facing armchairs instead of a close-pressed huddle on the sofa. Jon fought again for Martin to take the bed, and with something almost like disappointment, Martin agreed. 

One night became three, became seven. The dream continued. 

Jon collected moments with Martin like prized possessions, tucking them away to go over instead of trying to sleep. Martin in the mornings, making a face as he dutifully finished off Jon’s attempts at tea. The way that Martin’s face scrunched and his eyes lit up as he started another attempt at poetry. The gentle awe as Martin reached out to touch the wooly face of some ‘extremely good cows’. The little huff he made before a laugh when Jon cracked a dry joke. He knew that Martin didn’t mean for those to be  _ his _ , those moments were not ones Jon had been given, not ones he deserved. Jon had lost his chance to be with Martin properly, and they were only together now because there was no better choice.

But if Jon stood guard every night, made him breakfast in the mornings, maybe that would be enough to make up for it. He could pour his heart into the little things that needed to happen around the cabin, into shopping and lunch. He couldn’t give Martin his love and ask to be loved in return, but he could secretly take all these moments, and at night he could keep Martin safe.

It would be enough.

It had to be. 

* * *

The quiet returned, more every day, growing in tension and agony, filled with some invisible pressure that made Jon feel like he was back in the vast, like the air was being ripped from him. Martin still avoided even touching him, carefully moving around him with ghostlike steps. Jon’s hands shook when he reached for things, and he was glad that Martin couldn’t see it. The snatches of time together that Jon was beginning to live for grew more and more rare as the strength sapped from his body, and he had to spend more time indoors, more time in bed. 

Still, it was good. It was what he had. Compared to just a few weeks before, being across the room from Martin was so much more than straining at his desk until his nose began to bleed, trying to See him. If Jon was never going to get to know what Martin was like to kiss, at least now he had the safety and the time to think about it. He should be happy with what he got. It was tentative, ready to slip away at any minute like the dream it all was, and Jon would hold onto it for dear life. He could maybe be happy with this. 

He wasn’t supposed to break down as Martin asked him to take the bed again, for about the twelfth time in a row. His hands shook a lot, now, his vision swimming before his eyes. He didn’t notice the heave in his chest, the trail of wet down his cheeks, until Martin was crouched next to him on the floor, trying to get a look at his face. Jon didn’t remember being on the floor.

It was the closest they’d been since the Lonely, Jon distantly realized. The closest Martin’s been to touching him since Jon initially let go of his hand. Martin didn’t touch him, though, and Jon began to wonder if he reached out, if there’d be anything to touch at all. He could picture it clearly, taking Martin’s hand in his, and immediately watching the spell dissolve, whisking Martin from him in a puff of smoke, and then leaving him gasping, sobbing awake on a cot back in the archives, where this was all just an unfair dream. 

He realized Martin was saying something.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, his hands fluttering uselessly inches from Jon’s cardigan. “Jon. Jon, hey.” Martin looked up at him with such  _ concern.  _ “Hey, what is it? Talk to me,” He pleaded.

Jon opened his mouth to speak, and what came out was a desperate wheeze. “I, I--” He took in a breath, but it wasn’t working, his chest wrapping tighter in on itself with a weight he couldn’t explain. 

Martin reached out to him so slowly, at the speed that a star might take to shift its place among the sky, and Jon leaned in with all he was worth. “Is this okay?” Martin asked, his voice gentle. Jon used the last of his strength, what little he was not dedicating to breathing to nod. 

For a moment, the only sound over the strain of his lungs and the thud of his heart was the rustle of fabric and Martin practically scooped all of Jon into his arms. Jon screwed his eyes tight and wound his hands into the fabric of Martin’s jumper, holding on for as long as he could, waiting for the dream to end. He counted the moments he had left out in Martin’s breaths.

One.

Two. 

Three.

Four.

Martin was still there, holding him with the utmost care like he expected him to break. He breathed out in a shaky sigh, and Jon found himself breathing with him, pressed into his chest where he could feel Martin expand with the rush of air.

One. Two. Three. Four. 

Martin was once again saying something. 

One. Two. Three. Four. 

“It’s okay,” Martin was saying, whispering into his hair. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” Even solid and perfect around him, Martin shook, and Jon realized that Martin was real, that he was actually there. He wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t all perfect, and it wasn’t about to all fade away. 

“Could I,” Jon started, his voice cracking and raw. “Do you think I could stay with you, tonight?”

“Oh, Jon.” Martin replied, and his voice soothed over an open wound Jon was sure there must have been on his heart. “You can stay with me as much as you like.” 


	2. Clear your heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning comes.

The next morning, Jon found himself blinking awake, and sick vindication twisted in his stomach. He finally lost the dream for good, and was going to have to wander around the archives like he didn’t feel the ghost of Martin’s arms around him. 

Something shifted above him, and he began to slowly realize that the feeling wasn’t a false memory, clinging to him from sleep. Martin was actually next to him, pulling him close. He wasn’t staring into the dusty shelves of his office, but rather at the slightly ajar bedroom door. The flannel sheets beneath him were soft but grounding, and Jon found that they really did feel like Daisy’s shirts. 

Martin, solid and warm, felt like nothing Jon would ever deserve. He tried to soak the feeling of it into his skin, making it a part of himself. If Jon built himself from the ground up with love, would he eventually be something more than a monster? It sounded nice. 

“Hi,” Martin said from behind him, sleepy and quiet. His arm began to slide out from over Jon, ever-so-carefully, and Jon reached out to grip him. He wasn’t ready for that feeling to leave. Martin let out an awkward chuckle. “Oh. Oh, okay.” He settled back in. “That’s fine.” 

“Thank you,” Jon replied, trying to go for lighthearted, but sounding much too actually grateful to pull it off. “You can have this back when I’m through with it.” 

“Oh, can I?” Martin shot back, taking the bait. “How generous of you.” His voice was still too gently, too tender for it to be a proper joke, but it was a good approximation. They sat like that for a while, watching the sun grow brighter outside when Martin gave a small sigh. He sounded exhausted and worried all at once. “Are you okay, Jon? It felt like that was the first time in weeks that you’ve slept properly.” 

Jon stiffened in his arms and tried to keep his breathing normal. “I thought, I thought it would catch up with us if I relaxed. I didn’t think this would last, that it would be real. All the monsters out there, Elias, the hunters. The Eye with its hold on me. If I let my guard down, the dream would break.” 

“Jon.” Martin said his name again, like it was a prayer and not a name. “They haven’t found us yet. We haven’t had a tape recorder so much as turn on in weeks.” He pulled Jon in closer to him. “We’re safe, for now, we’re really okay. And I think if this was a dream we’d be having much nicer breakfasts.” 

Jon let those words settle into him, tried his hardest to believe in them. It helped, that in a soft bed and under Martin’s weight, it was hard to feel anything but safe. He realized, after a bit, that he was probably supposed to say something. “Are you criticizing my cooking skills, Mr. Microwave Chef?” 

“No, no, breakfast is lovely,” Martin replied, “but it’s usually... I dunno, fancy in dreams. Like the kind of excessive spread you’d see in movies.” 

“Is that something you’d want?” Jon asked, ready and willing to put the work in. He’d never made waffles before, but Tim once showed him how to make crepes. They had some fruit left and he could make eggs, maybe or beans and toast. It would be worth it, to make Martin happy. 

“I think we’d need a bigger occasion. And you already make me breakfast most days, anyway!” Martin pulled his arm free, and this time Jon didn’t fight it. “Tell you what, I’m going to make  _ you  _ breakfast today. Show you how to put together a proper cup of tea.” 

He turned to Jon briefly before getting up completely, finally able to properly look him in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere, by the way. Whatever might be out there for us, we can face it together.” The determined and serious look on his face was intense enough to nearly bring Jon to tears again, and then it smoothed out into something more collected. “Right. Time for breakfast, yeah?” 

Jon fiddled with the radio as Martin put on the kettle, and started to move things around a pan. It smelled good, what he was frying up, with eggs and potatoes and some other chopped veg. There weren’t many radio channels that got out that far, but there was one cheery pop station with a signal that was almost strong. A boyband that sounded remarkably similar to one from television in his youth played a little love song, and it was just far enough from perfect to feel real.

* * *

Jon realized he was allowed to reach out to Martin, then. It wasn’t _intimate_ , not yet, not really, but suddenly when Martin handed him his morning cuppa, their fingers brushed, and Martin didn’t immediately pull away. They sat next to each other on the sofa and Jon was able to savor the heat of where their thighs touched, and when Martin jumped at a creak in the rustic walls, Jon could take his hand in his own and squeeze. 

He did it as often as he could, took every excuse with the kind of greed he used to seek out in questions, finding strength in the way Martin’s skin had hair on his forearms, the way they would he could absentmindedly run his thumb into the back of Martin’s hand. It held him over better than any statement did, even as his hunger grew worse. 

Martin showed him how to make tea, properly, that afternoon. 

“It’s not that I don’t like that you make it for me in the mornings, now,” Martin consoled him, “but it’s just… not very good. Whoever taught you how to make tea, Jon?”

Jon picked at his arm and looked away. The answer, of course, was, “No one. I just sort of figured it out on my own at university.”

Martin scoffed. “Oxford teach you that, did it? Well, from now on I am forbidding you from using the microwave, and I’ll show you how to do it properly.” 

Jon watched as Martin took out a set of teacups with the same degree of care that he used with practically everything. Living with Martin now, Jon was beginning to realize that Martin was really not at all as clumsy as he appeared and that in all rights it should have been near-impossible to find fault with him all those years ago. Martin was thoughtful to the point of overthinking, and he’d never made the same mistake twice. Those large hands that should have been bumbling were more gentle than Jon’s rough but smaller own, and he went through every motion like it was the only chance he’d ever get. 

Jon drank in the sight of Martin humming next to the kettled, showing Jon their small collection of tea to choose from and listing off its various properties and needs. Greens and oolongs needed cooler water, blacks and herbals needed boiling. 

The wait times were important, too, and Martin offered him a little tomato-shaped timer that Daisy must have bought, turned to four minutes. 

“When I was living on my own, I used to have different songs to play on my phone for the wait times,” Martin admitted, in a shy, sheepish voice that Jon was in love with. “Made the time go faster. I still have some of them memorized.” 

Jon wanted to ask him which songs, wanted to hear Martin sing, in what would probably be a horribly off-key, but still, the most beautiful thing that he’d ever heard. Only, he didn’t know if they could do that. Didn’t know if that was within the undefined limit of what he and Martin were if that was something Martin would give him. He didn’t ask.

“They key to how much milk you want,” Martin instructed carefully once the timer went off, “Is in the colour. I know it’s to your taste when it gets to look like an american coffee.” 

“How do you know what that looks like?” Jon couldn’t resist asking. “I was the one who went to America.” 

“Well, I’m presuming it looks like this.” Martin presented him with a cup that looked familiar and smelled like home. “Pass me the sugar?”

Jon did as he asked, watching as Martin took one, two spoonfuls of the clumping white grains and dissolved them into his tea with quiet stirring. Martin never clashed the spoon into the sides of the mug as Jon did. 

“You know,” Martin told him, fixing up his own cup. “I had to figure out how you liked your tea through trial and error. Took about a year of handing you a slightly altered cuppa and seeing how much of it you took. It was a damn relief when you finally started smiling about it.” 

Jon lifted the mug to his lips and wondered, for a moment, if Gerry had been wrong about entities of love and good things. If they did exist, somewhere in the universe, then this sure felt like a ritual for it. 

He made a mental note of how much sugar Martin put into his own tea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall get to the rest tomorrow! Happy birthday to Cinna, this is for you!


	3. Cut the cord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin knows Jon doesn't love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurt/comfort 2: hurt again.  
> Cannon typical loneliness and Martin is self-deprecating. It's angsty. You have been warned.

Martin was going to die of happiness if he didn’t snap in half first. 

This is the third night he’s fallen asleep to the sound of Jon’s breathing, the third night he’s gotten to hold Jon’s hand in his own, and he wasn’t about to take that for granted. In fact, having Jon hand him a cup of tea and plate of toast, having their fingers brush as Jon’s slender hands passed it off to him, and getting to sit up next to him, Jon’s thigh brushing his knee… that was just about the greatest thing to happen to him, ever. 

Martin knew, had known since their first year working together, that he loved Jon. He also knew, now, that Jon would _never_ love him back. He never had. With so little left of Martin’s capacity to handle others, all the strain that he’d put Jon through, Martin didn’t even feel like an entire person. Half a Martin, something kind of like a friend to Jon. There was no room for romance in that.

But every time Jon pressed up into his side, Martin’s stomach filled with butterflies, and his face threatened to heat up, and he struggled to think past the word _love, love, love._

And then the part of Martin that really Martin anymore would kick in. That gaping hole where some of him used to be opened wider and reminded him that Jon was taking comfort from him only because he had no one better. That Martin, and his stupid, selfish crush was practically using him. Jon wouldn’t be here if he knew. If he knew, Jon wouldn’t be so okay with sleeping next to Martin. There would be no more happy breakfasts and cups of steadily increasing quality tea. It would just be Martin again, alone. 

He was nothing if not good at making the best of it, so when Jon reached out to touch him, he carefully avoided flinching away. When that guilty, fog-filled space in his chest spoke up about it, he pushed it away until Jon moved away again. There wasn’t enough of Martin left for Jon to love back, but Martin loved him with all that he was. The least he could do was be the only available human-like being, the source of occasional cuddles. And it was good. It was so, so good, despite it all.

Like he had all his life, he put all his problems aside for someone who needed him more, and he tried not to think about it in his sleep.

* * *

Martin nearly dropped the dish he was holding. He was lucky that he’d just finished with the cleaning up, or there might have been a cascade of water and post-dinner mess along with it. 

“What?” He finally managed through the tightness in his throat.

Jon looked, for all his own shock and horror, like he had really not intended to say anything, much less kill him with one phrase. He gaped back at Martin, frozen in place. Finally, he swallowed, and said, “I, uh… I love you.” Colour was rising on Jon’s cheeks. His voice, low and beautiful, stabbed deep into Martin. “I’m in love with you.” 

The fine line in Martin that kept the cold at bay finally snapped. “No, you don’t.” His own voice was flat, distant. He turned away. “You’re not.”

“But, I--” Jon’s hand was on his arm, and it burned. He pulled away. 

“No, Jon.” He let out a sigh. “Look, you barely even tolerated me before all this, and that’s before I spent months and months driving you off.” Jon’s face crumpled, and he moved to say something, probably in defense of his own action, and Martin cut him off. “I don’t need you to apologize to me, or pretend for my sake. You can be close to me if you want, we can go back to how it was, it’s fine… it’s just, Melanie already said that you _don’t, ever,_ and I can’t bear it if you lie to me. I’m sorry.” 

“Martin,” Jon started softly, and Martin moved to go. He couldn’t handle this.

Jon tried again. “Martin, **look at me.”**

* * *

A memory. 

Fog rolled at his feet. It was probably cold, he remembers the cold, but he didn't remember how much he was used to it. It was barely enough to affect him, as far gone as he was. He remembered the big, empty quiet of the lonely. The way it wrapped around him like an ic padding of cotton. Nothing could hurt him in there, except the lonely itself.

The end of the line for Martin Blackwood was meant to be a whisper and not a bang. He would fade, there, and the rest of the world would be all the same for it, being already so far removed. What difference was it even going to make? 

Jon was looking for him, stubborn as he was. Martin remembered that. But Jon was going to have to go, and Martin would stay, until there was no Martin anymore. 

“I’m sorry.” He remembers saying. It echoed through the fog, and he barely recognized it. That voice was warm and soft. That didn’t feel like him. 

“Martin. Martin, look at me.” Jon was saying. “ Look at me **and tell me what you see.”**

Martin looked, and in Jon’s eyes, he saw love. He saw so much affection, and admiration, and worry. He saw the expression Jon made over his shoulder when he’d gotten back from America, and practically fell into Martin’s arms. He saw the look in Jon’s eyes and he sat in Georgie’s flat, talking about bad poetry and tea. He saw the desperate hint of a smile as Jon found him in the hall, after months of missing him and waiting. 

“I see you, Jon” Martin said, tears streaming down his face. It was so much, to be loved like this after so long of nothing. He never wanted to give it up. He reached out, through the fog towards Jon. “I _see_ you.”


	4. You've got to let me know

The shock of remembering froze Martin in place. How had he forgotten? If Jon noticed the flash of recognition in his eyes, the way that his words had suddenly unlocked that moment from deep within the lonely cavern of Martin’s chest, he didn’t mention it. 

Instead, he looked like he had the same look on his face as he did when leaving for the Unknowing. Like failure wasn’t an option. Like there was something he needed to say.

“Melanie had no right to do that.” Jon started, “and she’s wrong. What I am-- a lot of people call it ‘asexual’, Martin. I don’t look at people and want to,” he took a deep breath, “ to take them to bed. I’ve never really been interested in that, and I never will. That doesn't mean for a minute that I don’t love you. Waking up everyday and getting to see you… I don’t know how to express how much I wanted that. Still do, and I will for the rest of my life. Martin, I know how I was before, and I want you to know I was  _ wrong.  _ I know I’ve missed my chance if I ever even had one, and you don’t feel that way anymore, but still. You’re… you’re everything, Martin. It’s not a lie. And I love you. ” 

“Oh.” Martin replied, small and quiet. “But, you, I--” He waved his hands around emphatically, trying to bring out what he was trying to say. “I never stopped. Jon, I’ve been in love with you the whole bloody time!” He finally settled on, and Jon stared at him like he’d brought the sky down. 

Finally, after what could have been years of silence, Jon burst out laughing. In shock, there was little more Martin could do than scoff, sputter, and then join in. A dam broke in him, and suddenly tears were running down his face, and he was laughing until his sides started to hurt. Jon moved closer, and he pulled him in tight.

“We really messed that up, didn’t we?” Jon gasped between laughter and wheezing breath. “I’ve been holding it all back for  _ months.” _

Martin wrapped an arm around his waist, paying no mind to the way that Jon was practically doubled over onto him. “Months? Try a few years! You’re such a- a,  _ stupid, stubborn _ little man.” 

“Takes one to know one.”

Martin scoffed again, this time put on and theatrical. “I can’t believe this.” Finally, he got his breath under control. “So, are we… dating now? Are you my boyfriend?”

Jon leaned into him and spent a moment thinking. Finally, he looked up with a smile. “How about you buy me dinner, and I’ll let you know?”

* * *

Neither of them really wanted the hassle of a restaurant, so Martin drove to the only Chinese take-out place in what was probably 100 miles. He spared no expense while there, might have even been going a little overboard if the looks the shop owners were giving him were anything to go by.

It wasn’t his credit card, anyways. 

With armfuls of paper boxes, a dessert arrangement from the bakery, flowers, candles, and a bottle of juice and a bottle of wine, Martin proudly returned to the safe house, which was really beginning to feel like home. He spent nearly half an hour rearranging Daisy’s little kitchen before Jon marched in, too hungry to let it go on. 

“It’s not ready yet!” Martin protested to no avail. “It’s not my fault you only gave me about a day to prepare.” 

“It’s perfect,” Jon insisted. He was wearing his work slacks and the nicest t-shirt he had left, all tucked under a very familiar cardigan. “Now hurry up and go get dressed.” 

Martin drank in the sight of Jon in his sweater. “Is that mine?”

“Never mind that. Go on, go! I’m starving.”

When he returned wearing the only pair of jeans that had yet to form holes in, he heard the tinny sound of Daisy’s radio playing a pop song. If he listened quietly, he could just catch Jon humming along. Martin presented the flowers, the table, and himself, unable to keep the splitting smile from his face. 

“It’s lovely,” Jon told him, as he sat down to the little candlelit table, covered in a half-dozen platters of noodles and rice. “I love you.”

Martin poured juice for himself and wine for Jon-- ever since his father left, he’d made a promise not to drink it, but he remembered from that first birthday party what kind of reds Jon liked. He took a seat himself, watching Jon tear into the food while lit with the soft glow of the room he’d set. Jon looked amazing, he always did. “You look nice,” he said finally. “I love you too.”

They ate for a while, talking about nothing and everything, and Martin wondered how he had ever denied this. It felt right, more than the lonely, more than anything else. He felt warm, and like a whole person again. It was amazing. 

They cleaned up the plates, sharing a warm and comfortable glance, and then Jon took his hand and pulled him into the space between counter and table. He smiled, and Jon smiled and put a hand up on his shoulder. The music swelled from the tinny little radio, and Jon moved him gracefully and gently, in a little slow-paced dance. 

“I’d like to be your boyfriend.” Jon told him in a low mumble, “If you’ll have me, of course.”

Martin pressed the smallest kiss into his forehead and smiled into his hair. “I’d like that, yeah.”


End file.
